Metro
Women Of Vision'
NCJW event brings legendary women's rights activist Gloria Steinem.
Keri Guten Cohen
Story Development Editor
H
"Compared to other
developed democracies,
the U.S. doesn't fair well,"
she said. "Female repre-
sentatives in Congress
— we rank 82nd in the
world. We're the only mod-
ern democracy with no
national system of child-
care or health care. Women
need the system about 30
percent more than men, so
it's a penalty for women."
On the plus side, she
Gloria Steinem
did say there is more
consciousness about women's rights and
that the movement has gone global, tack-
ling such issues as sex trafficking, which
knows no borders.
Even being a feminist has changed.
"Now there are in this country hun-
dreds of local and national feminist
organizations," she said. "A woman can be
a full-time activist as a job with a salary.
That was not true in the beginning. I'm
happy to say it's more possible to work at
what you love and still eat."
eadlining the National Council
of Jewish Women/Greater Detroit
Section's annual Women of Vision
luncheon Sept. 15 is legendary feminist,
author and editor Gloria Steinem.
Women of a certain age know Steinem as
a leader of the women's rights movement
of the late 1960s and early 1970s, as co-
founder of Ms. magazine, and as a political
activist pushing for equal rights and equal
pay Younger women barely know her name,
but may be interested to know she is step-
mother by marriage to actor Christian Bale.
The distance between the generations is
telling. At 75, Steinem is a foremother who
paved the way for today's generation of
women who now are making 77 cents for
every dollar earned by men, rather than
the 59 cents they were receiving in 1970.
Progress, yes, but all generations should
know there's still a distance to go.
Steinem will address that topic when she
talks about the "Women's Movement: Past,
Present and Future" at the NCJW event.
"We have come a long distance, but
Jewish Roots
we're still nowhere near where we need to
Gloria Steinem is not halachicly Jewish
be," Steinem said from her home in New
— her father was Jewish; her mother was
York. "We were pushed back by decades of Christian Protestant — yet she says she is
backlash against equality from both Bush
attracted to the "Jewish emphasis on social
administrations plus Reagan. We are fight- justice and on the acts of compassion and
ing to gain ground and move forward.
justice in this life:'
"No one in my family
went to temple or was part
of the Jewish commu-
nity;' she said. Her mother
and grandmother were
Theosophists, and she was
raised in that tradition that
blends science, religion and
philosophy. Her mother
was the one who taught her
about the Holocaust and
anti-Semitism.
Grandmother Pauline
Perlmutter Steinem died
when Gloria was 5, and she
didn't learn more about her grandmother's
activism until she was an activist herself.
Pauline Steinem was an early suffrag-
ist who founded the first public school
for vocational education and was the first
female elected to public office in Toledo
when she won her seat on the Toledo
Board of Education.
"I didn't know that she went to many
international and national conferences or
that she ran on a ticket with anarchists
and socialists," Steinem said.
Ironically, Steinem's grandmother had
been a NCJW president in Toledo.
For nearly 30 years, Steinem has
attended a feminist seder in New York
on the third night of Passover. Former
Detroiter Esther Broner, who published
The Women's Seder in Ms. magazine in
1976, provided the initial rituals.
"She and another woman expanded on
the Haggadah," Steinem said. "They added
additional questions, like 'Why were our
foremothers sad on this night?' Because
they could prepare the feast, but not par-
take in the ceremony-
Steinem continues her activism, is
working on a book and spends time on
the speakers' circuit.
Local activist Judy Rosenberg will be
honored with the Hannah G. Solomon
Award at the NCJW
event. She is a past
Detroit section presi-
dent, national NCJW
board member and
coordinator of the
State Public Affairs
Network. She also is vice
president of the Jewish
Judy
Community Relations
Rosenberg
Council, on the finance
committee for Common
Ground and has been appointed for her
second term on the Michigan Women's
Commission.
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NCJW event: Boutiques run 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m.
Tuesday, Sept. 15, at Congregation Shaarey
Zedek in Southfield. Kosher luncheon is at
11:30 a.m. Steinem will speak at 12:45 p.m.
Luncheon tickets are $75; revervations must
be made by 3 p.m. Sept. 11. Speech only tickets
are $35 and available at the sanctuary door.
For information, call (248) 355-3300, ext 0.
Cremation Garden
Machpelah has been quietly burying cremains for five years.
Man Hitsky
Associate Editor
W
ith advice from the Council of
Orthodox Rabbis of Greater
Detroit in 2004, Machpelah
Cemetery in Ferndale has interred 47 sets
of cremains in a small, separate plot near
Woodward Avenue.
The "cremation garden" is unmarked
and separated from the rest of the
cemetery by a low, stone wall. It is
located across the cemetery road from
Machpelah's chapel.
Machpelah may be the first Jewish cem-
etery in Michigan to accept cremains. Its
policy came to light after Clover Hill Park
Cemetery announced that it would allow
gentile and Jewish spouses to be buried
side by side in a separate section of the
16
Troy cemetery and that it would also allow
cremains in another separate section
("Sharing Holy Ground," Sept. 3, page 14).
Machpelah officials said last week that
they have been approached for decades
about burying cremains, especially since
immigrants from the former Soviet Union
came to the U.S., sometimes with the
cremains of relatives. Earlier this decade,
the officials said, cemetery workers would
sometimes find ashes or urns placed on
relatives' graves.
In 2004, Jerry Bigelman, Macheplah's
executive vice president and counsel, and
Paul Saville, the cemetery's general man-
ager, asked for a meeting with the Council
of Orthodox Rabbis to discuss the issue.
"We needed a place to do this right," said
Saville last week.
Bigelman added that cemetery officials
had declined to accept cremains since
Machpelah was founded in 1912 because
of Jewish law. "But if we were going to do
it, what was acceptable?" he asked.
Bigelman summarized from a 2004 let-
ter from the Council of Orthodox Rabbis.
The letter backed Jewish law but offered
the following points:
• Cremains could be interred in an area
clearly delineated on all sides as separate
from the rest of the cemetery.
• There should be no standing grave-
stones. At Machpelah, each cremain site
has a name plate approximately 14 inches
long and 7-8 inches wide. Each is flush
with the ground and the sites are within
inches of each other.
• Paperwork for cremains is different
than the paperwork for normal burials.
• No active religious services should
take place in the cremation garden.
• The area is used only when requested.
There is no active soliciting for cremains.
Bigelman said the rabbis' letter gave
helpful advice on the least objectionable
way to handle a growing problem.
When Machpelah began accepting cre-
mains, Saville said, the cemetery found that
some clients had been storing urns at home
for 10 or 15 years. In other cases, adult chil-
dren cleaning out their deceased parents'
apartments discovered urns of relatives
they didn't know had been cremated.
Bigelamn said the cemetery's board
had been discussing cremains for some
time because of the volume of requests.
He said all cemeteries are running out of
space and more people are seeking crema-
tion because it is less costly than a regular
burial.
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